


A Trial

by nookienostradamus



Series: Beat Me in Detroit, My Darling [2]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Ball Stomping?, Bathing, Bloodplay, Bondage, Branding, Breaking and Entering, Caning, Choking, Come Eating, Coming Untouched, Copious Fake Come, Crying, Dirty Talk, Exhibitionism, Gavin is a brand new SOMETHING, Gavin is not well liked, Hair Pulling, Humiliation, Humor, Impromptu Gag, Inhuman Sexual Stamina, Jazz - Freeform, Knifeplay, Liquor, M/M, Masochism, Masturbation, Orgasm Denial, Overfilling, Ownership, Protective RK900, Punching, Sadism, Self Harm, Sex Dreams, Slapping, Sort Of, Spanking, Torture, Unless you're Gavin, Vodka and knife wounds are a bad mix, Voyeurism, music references, obviously, surrender, uh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-08 14:49:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15932651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nookienostradamus/pseuds/nookienostradamus
Summary: Gavin should really heed the old adage, "Be careful what you wish for," when it comes to the RK900.But he's not going to. Largely because "Jacob" can give him what he craves. And he'll keep giving, even when Jacob asks for more in return.Sequel to "A Test."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tenaciousAmbler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenaciousAmbler/gifts).



> Tags. Read them. And that's just for this chapter. More to be added later. Dead dove and whatnot. For [tenaciousAmbler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenaciousAmbler/pseuds/tenaciousAmbler) because they asked.

_All of the guys at the squad are at their desks, and all of them are watching Gavin try to handle the too-full mug of coffee. Admittedly, it’s a little weird. But what registers is excitement, raw as a blue steak, because he’s walking toward Jacob, who’s leaning against the wall. It’s casual but also tense in the way only Jacob is: like he’s not holding the building up with one shoulder but he absolutely_ could _._

_“Is that for me, Gavin?” he asks._

_Kind of a cheesy line, but Gavin really doesn’t think twice about it because he’s got it planned how this is going down. “Sure the fuck is,” he says. Then he’s throwing the coffee right in that ludicrously handsome face._

_It melts out half of whatever’s holding Jacob’s hair in place, funnels down his neck, completely jacks up that high-collared coat_ — _yeah, the one so ugly you couldn’t pay a male model enough to take it down the runway._

_Gavin grins. The whole squad claps and cheers, and for a second he’s on top of the world before the side of his face is crunching into the wall. Oops, that might have been a cheekbone, there. It doesn’t actually hurt, though, and that’s the weirdest thing of all._

_Jacob’s still got one hell of a grip with a wet hand, and he’s twisting Gavin’s arm behind his back, pushing the wrist almost to his neck until his shoulder is making sounds like a bowl of Rice Krispies._

_...And there’s also no pain this time._ What— _Gavin pauses to think_ —the fuck? Has he died and gone to hell?

_Jacob is busily shredding Gavin’s pants: the waistband rips, a button pops and pings off the wall._

_Funny that Gavin notices that little detail. His boxers are next, coming to pieces in an unrealistic way, which only bumps the suspicion that all is not as it seems. The cotton would at least have strained in a really nasty, delicious way against his balls before breaking._

_“Naughty,” Jacob says._

_Gavin rolls his eyes. “You cheesy motherfu_ — _” He stops then because a big hand hard as a two-by-four slams down on his ass. Once, twice, three times._

_After sitting silent, the guys at their desks are cheering again. And Gavin can’t give a shit because he’s too busy being puzzled and frustrated that everything is numb. He’s going to try to put up a fight for his God-given right to be taken down a few pegs, when he_ —

 

—wakes up. He smacks his lips, grabs at the sheet a little bit, opens crusty eyes. Above him is the ceiling fan, doing its thing. It’s even _more_ disappointing than the dream, because he’s just there in his bed: alone, un-spanked, un-humiliated. Oh, but let’s not forget: stiff as roadkill.

Gavin groans and looks over at the holo-display on the bedside table. 0245 hours.

“Son of a bitch,” he mumbles. He wants to go back to sleep, clear out that clusterfuck of a dream, but it’s not going to happen until he takes care of business. A week and a half since the throwdown in the evidence room and not even so much as a dickslap from Jacob. He’d barely been around the station, like he was purposely slinking at Gavin’s periphery.

That wasn’t exactly the kind of fuck-you taunting he liked. Hence (probably) the subconscious stepping in to get the job done. _Sort of._

Gavin shimmies off his pajama pants and takes hold of his cock with the heavy sigh of the truly deprived. With the other hand, he does a little half-hearted groping behind his balls. He wishes he had something big and uncomfortable to shove in his ass—and someone to do the shoving—but, you know...beggars, choosers. Whining, he rolls over, on his knees with bare ass in the air. Guess it’s too much to hope that Jacob will come busting through the wall of his place like the motherfucking Kool-Aid Man and slam his dick in like he’s trying to play ping pong with Gavin’s liver.

Probably.

So he gives his forefinger a cursory suck and reaches back to cram it in.

It isn’t nearly enough. Maybe if he focuses on the dream. The addition of the entire Homicide squad as audience was an interesting touch. Gavin isn’t going to root around in his brain for reasons why, as long as that one stays in the magical land of pretend. He can’t afford to get fired, for one. And he’d rather eat his gun than let Anderson watch while Jacob makes him his own personal voodoo doll.

However, remove that Santa Claus-looking motherfucker and Gavin finds himself remarkably okay with getting his ass thoroughly tanned in front of an appreciative crowd.

Christ, the android is showing him all manner of dirty niches he’s never thought to poke his fingers into. As Jacob himself had said: best not to question it. Jacob is the Mozart of fucking Gavin’s shit up—the goddamn Miles Davis; he’s not gonna complain when all he had before this point was Bryan fucking Adams.

Oh, wait, no. Actually, he is going to. Precisely _because_ it’ll get a few teeth punched down his throat.

That really gets the gears moving, praise the Lord and pass the nipple clamps. Gavin stops beating off long enough to work another finger into his asshole, then goes back at it full-tilt. He’s got his face in the pillow, imagining Jacob’s shoe on the back of his head, and that’s just enough. He spatters the bed, clenching around his fingers, hips going like a jackhammer.

Once he frees up his head and can breathe again, Gavin drops to the mattress and sucks as much of his come out of the rumpled sheet as he can. As a last act, he pulls his fingers out, wipes them on the pillowcase, plants his cheek on it, and drifts back off into blissful slumber.

As soon as Gavin is in the precinct the next day, Jackson is rattling a pickle jar in his face. It’s packed with coins and a few bills.

“Dollar for the jar?” Jackson asks. He’s capering around like a malevolent elf, giving the few other guys a chuckle.

“I’m not paying for your boner pills,” Gavin says. He’s trying to make a beeline for the coffeemaker.

“You’ll like this one, Reed,” Winterburg calls from behind his console. “Go ahead and put up some cash, you stingy bastard.”

Gavin shoulders past Jackson, who’s still girly-giggling. “I’m not paying for hookers, either.”

“Not what I heard!” That’s Tate.

Half-turning, Gavin calls to him: “Shut it, dickstain. Heard you fucked a bowl of Jell-o ‘cause Jackson’s mom made it.”

“Which one? I got two!” Jackson shoots back. “Trick question, because ain’t my Mom _or_ my Mama going to make anything for you jokers.”

“C’mon, Gavin,” says Winterburg, drawing out the vowels in his name. “We’re taking up a collection for ya.”

At that, Gavin stops and turns, suspicious.

“Well, okay, sort of,” Jackson says. “Me and the guys here, we’re trying to find out who’s been kicking your ass. Got a good pool going.”

A blush is headed rapidly up Gavin’s neck to his cheeks. He spins around again to face the coffee machine so nobody sees. “Oh, fuck off,” he manages.

“Yeah,” Tate pipes up. “When we find out, we’re gonna give _him_ the money!” He cracks up at that, with Jackson and Winterburg joining in.

Gavin is steaming, probably more than the coffee. He’s never been Mr. Popular on the squad, but this little stunt—if it is one—is deflating the exquisite fantasy from last night like a screwdriver in a blow-up doll. He’s going to have to rely on his slutty subconscious to throw out another one if Jacob doesn’t step up to the plate soon. And even though his brain is dependably cock-starved, creativity isn’t his strong suit. After all, he likes it when other people (or things?) call the shots.

The miserable day drags so much that Gavin is practically sprinting across the parking lot to his car, planning to lay down serious rubber on the way to the liquor store. If he’s not going to get fucked or punched tonight, he’s going to get hammered.

With a bottle of Jack and a bottle of Stoli safely cradled next to his chest, Gavin is wiping his hand on his pants so the fingerprint lock on his door doesn’t put up too much of a fight. It’s old and finicky, and management couldn’t give two shits about replacing it. While he’s scrubbing the print panel with the hem of his shirt, he’s thinking about taking Jackson’s stupid jar of cash and splurging on a DNA lock.

“Gavin.”

Gavin leaps like a scared cat and makes a noise like a twelve-year-old. The bag he’s clutching jostles and the fifth of Jack tumbles in slow-mo over his forearm to smash on the pavement. It feels like someone shot his dog as he looks down at all that wasted dough.

Some of the liquor has splashed onto the polished shoes standing by the walk, and the pant cuffs above them. Gavin’s gaze moves up. Knife-creased trousers, stupid jacket, lips worth killing a man for, flinty-cool eyes in a smug, familiar face.

“You’ll pay for that,” Jacob says.

And suddenly Gavin’s _Hell no_ is turning into a bright, beautiful _Fuck yes_ because he knows that Jacob isn’t talking money. “Hey,” Gavin says, lame as ever.

“Open the door,” is what Jacob comes back with. “Quickly. I’d rather not punish you in front of your neighbors, but I will, if necessary.”

_The neighbors!_ Gavin hadn’t thought of that. _Put that one away for later use._ He mashes his thumb against the panel and by some miracle the lock gives.

Jacob is talking softly, but there’s no hesitation, just a wicked drone like a mechanical wasp. “Stop immediately when you get inside. Don’t turn around. Put the bottle on the floor. If you do or say anything else, you will regret it.”

Gavin walks into the cool, dim entryway, facing toward his barely-visible kitchen. He crouches to set the Stoli on the floor, _carefully_ , then hesitates.

Jacob closes and locks the door behind them, shutting out the world.

Gavin squinches up his face, debating for a second. Then: “Can I stand up again?”

And, _oh_ , the hand in his hair—merciless, hauling him upright and then some.

_Guess the answer is “yes.”_

“Ever determined not to listen,” Jacob hisses in his ear. “I’ll give you credit for your perseverance, Gavin, though it’s misplaced.”

The grip tightens. Gavin really tries not to make noise.

“You don’t defy nearly as well as you suffer,” says Jacob. “I do intend to break you of that defiance. It’s ugly. You’re so much prettier when you’ve given in to me.”

Gavin isn’t really sure he wants to be _pretty_ , but if Jacob gets his plastic rocks off on reducing him to a bruised and snotty mess, well, he can call him “Michelle” for all Gavin fucking cares. At the cusp of that though, he’s yanked into motion, almost tripping over his feet. If he loses his footing and goes down, Jacob’s hand is going to stay where it is, along with a good chunk of Gavin’s hair.

Jacob’s keeping up his narration as he drags Gavin along, no more put out at hauling a hundred-and-ninety-pound guy than he would be carrying the bottle of vodka left in the hall behind them. “You think it’s admirable to have ‘spirit,’” he says. “To put up a fight, keep your dignity. It’s not. It complicates things. For _you_ , Gavin, dignity is an illusion. When we’re alone, just you and me, you don’t have to pretend. Isn’t that _freeing_?”

They’re in the kitchen, where Jacob lets loose of Gavin’s hair. He actually puts the hand on Gavin’s back like some goddamned coach or something, and it’s really awkward until he drives the other fist hard into Gavin’s belly.

Gavin doubles over, choking and gasping. His vision goes purple, then red. Before it clears up, Jacob’s grabbed his hair again—in a slightly different place for maximum eye-watering.

“I realize,” he says, louder now because Gavin is wheezing, “that some of your continued resistance might be my fault. I haven’t made myself clear, and I intend to change that from this point on. You give yourself for me to use, but you don’t quite fully understand. I don’t need you to submit to me whenever I ask, Gavin. You have to submit _all the time_ . When I’m with you and when I’m not. I _watch_ you, Gavin. I observe. You think about yourself and what _you_ want, or what you _think_ you want. In truth, you have no fucking clue. I know what you _need_ and I’m going to give it to you. And all I ask in return is that you let go of this stupid pretense at autonomy, and just surrender. You’ll devote every waking moment to thinking about what will please me. You’ll sleep to prepare yourself for me. You won’t abuse your body, because that is my privilege alone.”

Gavin wants to say something along the lines of, _I’m pretty much halfway there_. It’s not untrue: Jacob already has a hold on his mind and an iron fucking grip on his dick. Why else would he have spent so much time and—Jesus Christ!—so much _lotion_ reliving every agony served up? That and stopping just short of begging for the next.

However, at the moment he chooses to stay bent over and drooling slightly on the tile just in case the hoagie he had for lunch makes a second appearance. Jacob would definitely like puke on his shoes even less than spilled Jack Daniel’s. And probably wouldn’t be above making Gavin eat it.

At long last, he’s let go again. His scalp throbs and he’s pretty sure he can feel the places that are going to turn purple where each of Jacob’s knuckles hit home. He can’t stand fully upright, but that’s just fine and dandy, because his cock is taking up the slack.

“Take off your clothes,” Jacob orders.

Gavin doesn’t wait to see what’s in store this time. He just kits off as fast as he possibly can and stands—barefoot and awkward and painfully hard—on the cold tile. And nearly as soon as he’s up a brutal backhand sends him crashing, unbalanced and landing square on his tailbone with a jolt of pain that vibrates his teeth.

“Down,” Jacob says from above. “Do you think it might help if I give the order after I’ve made you comply?”

What Gavin figures is that the question is rhetorical and he keeps his yap shut. Wondering whether he’ll have to sit on one of those donut cushions for the next six weeks is taking up enough brain space as it is.

Jacob takes off that ridiculous jacket and sets it on the countertop. If at all possible, he looks _better_ in his form-fitting black shirt than he does naked, which is a feat. His neck is long, pale, and smooth. He pushes the sleeves one after the other to just below his elbows, exposing white forearms.

Gavin at once wants to suck a tiny pool of whiskey out of the hollow between Jacob’s collar bones. But the whiskey has gone bye-bye, just as vanished as the chance that Jacob will let Gavin put his mouth where he wants to. After all, you can’t choke someone with only an expanse of smooth, _soft_ skin.

And speaking of which...Jacob hits a crouch so fast it would make Bruce Lee weep with jealousy and drives his hand forward. It contacts Gavin’s neck and keeps going, neatly cutting off the air flow and also sliding him backward on his bare butt until his head and shoulders slam into one of the cabinets. The door rattles. Something behind it falls with a muffled clang: a pan or a baking dish.

_Shut up._ Gavin does—very occasionally—bake.

“You’ll stay here, yes?” Jacob asks.

There sure ain’t no talking with a c-clamp around his windpipe, so Gavin hopes androids understand the _blink once for yes_ trope. He half-nods for good measure. The hand comes away, then, and air rushes in, and Jesus fuck...it burns.

Affecting a musing expression, Jacob taps one fingertip beside his ruthlessly gorgeous mouth. “You like to scream, don’t you?”

_Like it, need it...potato, po-tah-toe…_

“Hhhh…” says Gavin.

“Can’t worry the neighbors, can we?” Jacob asks, almost cheerfully.

Gavin’s yearning little heart skips at that, because it’s what he’s come to recognize as the “about to get down to business” tone. Which makes him go lightheaded with want and turns his cock into a lightning rod for bodily abuse.

Jacob scans the room, which is still dim, then snags Gavin’s discarded jeans. He pulls the boxers free, then crumples the fabric in a powerful fist and brings it up to his nose for a long sniff. “Disgusting,” he says.

Gavin’s dick jumps and starts leaking.

Then Jacob’s unforgiving fingers are digging into his cheeks, pressing the flesh hard against his teeth and forcing his jaw open. Jacob crams the wadded-up boxers into Gavin’s mouth until the mass reaches the back of his throat.

Gavin can breathe through his nose, which he does, catching the sharp scent of his own sweat from the fabric. He’s drooling, but it’s all seeping into the filthy wad of cotton, which is going to be soaked by the time they’re done.

If all goes well.

Just then, Gavin isn’t sure what to do with his hands, but Jacob orders him to put them behind his back and that settles that.

He stands, looking down, and is just... _impossibly_ tall. He’s got to have at least four inches on Gavin’s six-foot-one (and a half, dammit). Definitely bigger than Connor was. Bigger even than Anderson, the fucking Sasquatch. “Spread your legs,” he says.

Gavin does, planting his feet wide on the tile. His cock is doing all the begging his stopped-up mouth can’t.

With the thinnest of smiles, Jacob steps forward, plants his heel firmly, and rests the toe of his shoe against Gavin’s balls. He’s still got hold of the jeans, which look empty and sad. The toe comes down an inch or so.

It’s all Gavin can do to keep his eyes from rolling back in his head. He’s suddenly devastated when it occurs to him Jacob probably doesn’t have the right inner workings that he can drop trou and piss on his face.

_Yeah, absolutely no more thinking about that scenario or he’s going to come_.

Then he’s almost sure once again that Jacob has some kind of “Gavin’s going to fuck this up” sixth sense because he lowers the toe another two inches, crushing the shit out of one of Gavin’s nuts and cramming the other painfully to one side.

The scream Gavin tries for comes out as a groan because he’s slapped with a wave of nausea. His eyes well up and spill over. He slams his head back against the cabinet to center himself, making the cookware rattle again. After that, his stomach settles and the pain takes over, pure and wild and hot. Every time he inhales it rattles, and every breath out is a whimper. _Whistle-screech-whistle_ like a fucking dog toy.

“Hm,” Jacob says. He lifts his foot.

Gavin sobs, hiccups, makes himself stop. With stinging eyes, he looks up to see Jacob going through the pockets of his limp jeans. He hits on what he’s looking for with a look of what passes for joy. Those nightmare eyes seem almost back-lit. On a person, that shit would be full-on Dr. Frankenstein, but Jacob looks more like a piano prodigy who just nailed Rachmaninoff to the floor.

_So to speak_.

It makes Gavin feel like a prop, an object completely bent to a masterful user. It’s the exhilaration of getting to kneecap a fleeing suspect—times ten.

His hard-on has a hard-on.

When Jacob pulls the object out of Gavin’s pants with a flourish, Gavin almost faints. It’s the little butterfly knife he’s carried since high school. He almost, _almost_ wonders how Jacob knows, but then he remembers he’s being watched. Jacob has probably seen him idly playing with it by his console or smoking out back. He’s gotten pretty good at flinging the thing around gangster-style, opening and closing it, spinning it around his fingers.

If Jacob does anything fancy along those lines, Gavin is going to nut _for sure_.

Thank the fucking Baby Jesus he only flips it open with one quick move. He examines the blade, then says, “I do hope you keep it sharp. Otherwise this could be...messy.”

“Mmnnhhgnmn,” Gavin says. Roughly translated: _Cut me with a dinner fork, you beautiful fucker._

Jacob plants a knee between Gavin’s outspread legs, right next to his rapidly swelling balls.

To hell with sitting, _walking_ isn’t going to be fun for a day or so.

“I entertained a few options,” Jacob says, placing the point of the knife gently beside Gavin’s right knee and trailing it slowly down the inside of his thigh. “Reminders, warnings. Something brief but effective.”

The glinting knife-tip reaches the crease at Gavin’s hip and Jacob guides it into the wiry scrub surrounding Gavin’s cock. He frowns. “Shave this fucking mess. It’s disgraceful.”

For Gavin’s part, he thinks he’d had the ol’ bush pretty under control, but apparently not.

Jacob seizes his hair and knocks his skull smartly against the wood. _Third time’s the charm._ “Did you hear me?”

Gavin nods and makes a noise. The boxers are crumpled and slimy on his tongue.

“In any case,” Jacob continues, “I believe you’ll understand what I’ve chosen soon enough. And you’ll know when I’ve finished. At which point, you may come.”

Mystified, Gavin nods again because that’s what Jacob wants.

“Now,” he says, “hold still.”

He makes the first diagonal cut about halfway up the inside of Gavin’s right thigh.

It stings like bejesus, but Gavin is fairly sure for the moment he can go without screaming or weeping. Coming, he’s not so sure about.

Jacob hums a little as he makes the next cut. Neither one is deep, really, but they’re not scratches: the first is beading up and dribbling blood and the next soon follows suit. And the third. And the fourth.

The sting is starting to spread outside the bounds of the cuts themselves, pushing an ache into what feels like muscle from knee to groin. Gavin feels liquid warmth sliding down to pool under his ass cheek, his tortured balls. He chances a look. Jacob said something about knowing when it was finished…

It’s a _W._

_Okay…_ Unsure where he’s going with this, Gavin has to train his gaze back up at the ceiling because the brightness of his blood on Jacob’s white fingers and the white tile is making his nuts throb. In the undesirable, gonna-shoot-my-load way.

With the next three cuts, he’s trying not to squirm. It burns now: immediate and sharp while the blade parts his skin and then duller and deeper between slices.

Jacob is still humming.

It’s not tuneless psycho music; it’s something Gavin’s brain would recognize if he could just get it down from Dopamine Tower. And oh, _fuck_ , does the next one hurt. It’s not short and straight like the others, but drawn-out and ribbony in one long stroke. Gavin whines. There are fresh tears, he’s digging his nails into his palms, and he has to huff snot out of one nostril so he can keep bringing in air. It slides down over his lip.

More blood slides onto the tile.

He looks down. Fuck-a-mighty, there’s a lot of red, but he can make out letters. Go figure Jacob has impeccable handwriting with a pocket knife in living skin.

_W-H-O_

Yellow fireworks go off behind Gavin’s eyes, and he’s all _No-no-no-no_ and perilously close to covering Jacob’s forearm with spunk. The only thing that saves him, that holds him back, is pinpointing the tune.

It’s Dave Brubeck’s _Take Five_.

He lets his head fall back and wails, or does whatever one does with a mouthful of cotton steeped in spit and ball sweat.

Another straight cut, a meandering one, straight again.

Gavin’s leg is on fire. When it’s not hitching from the pain, he’s breathing like a racehorse. _Four to go_ , he tells himself.

The final letter cuts dangerously close to the groin—amazing and awful. Gavin’s ready; he’s _so_ ready, as a man who is now one single knife stroke away from both a blinding orgasm and the word _WHORE_ carved into his leg.

Jacob stops, lets him teeter, straining, on the edge for a couple of seconds.

In those fucking endless moments, Gavin both hates him and worships him.

Then he slices, quick and neat.

He pulls his hand back as Gavin’s helpless cock pumps ribbons of white into the pool of red.

When the incredible blankness of his orgasm subsides, Gavin sees that Jacob is standing again. He wipes first the knife blade then his fingers on Gavin’s shirt.

Gavin flinches when he tosses the blade, still open, onto the floor. It skitters and comes to rest cold against Gavin’s naked ass.

“I believe I chose well,” says Jacob. Then he drops the shirt and walks out.

Disoriented, Gavin cranes his neck. He is torn between moving to see if Jacob leaves and staying put in case he doesn’t. His backside is completely numb; that’s going to hurt both the untouched skin and his brutalized balls when circulation returns.

He can’t hear footsteps, but suddenly Jacob is back in the kitchen.

Gavin straightens up. _I’ve been good. I’ve been good._

In one hand, Jacob is holding the bottle of Stoli.

_Cheers,_ Gavin thinks. And then it hits his stupid, foggy head and his eyes go wide. He’s never been more tempted to pull his hands from behind his back and plead.

Jacob inclines his head, smiling. The screw-top cap crackles as he turns it.

Gavin hears it click on the tile when it’s dropped.

“Open your eyes, Gavin,” Jacob says.

He obeys, a fresh round of tears popping up.

“Good boy.” Jacob tips the bottle over.

The vodka is cold when it hits Gavin’s knee. It feels like nothing short of napalm as it runs into the cuts. The sodden mass of underwear in his mouth is finally put to the test. Gavin keeps screaming after Jacob sets the bottle on the counter and departs.


	2. Chapter 2

Gavin couldn’t help it—he’d called in sick the day after Jacob’s little house call. A good part of it was not being able to walk even when he padded out his thigh with three layers of gauze.

The stupid drone deliveries piss him off generally, but he’d broken down that night and ordered a pharmacy’s worth of supplies: tape, bandages, antibacterial ointment. Not that the risk of infection was likely. Dr. Stolichnaya had seen to that pretty handily.

It makes Gavin dizzy to remember it.

After collapsing in a heap on his kitchen floor, his head in a pool of pink-tinged vodka, Gavin managed to rouse himself about half an hour after Jacob left. His thigh was a solid wall of scab and half-stuck to the hair on the other one. The kitchen floor looked like the world’s worst modern art installation. _Still life with blood, semen, alcohol, and the scraps of Gavin Reed’s pride._

His first instinct had been to gather said pride back up, but he remembered what Jacob had said while hauling him bodily into the kitchen.

 

 _For you, Gavin, dignity is an illusion. When we’re alone, just you and me, you don’t have to pretend_.

 

If Gavin is honest with himself, not much in his life requires Deep Thought. That’s on purpose. He just reacts, winging it. Shit strategy for an investment banker or a university president, but pretty fucking useful for a cop. It generally makes sure the bullets go the right way.

Even though he wants Jacob to hurt him, for the first time in his life Gavin isn’t sure that merrily rolling along provoking the shit out of him is going to make him meaner.

It’s pretty much a surefire strategy when it comes to people, but Jacob is not people. Not in any way, shape, or form. He’s got a face, a mouth—a fucking cock for God’s sake—but honestly it’s sometimes like a mess of steel beams and blinking lights is badly wearing that pale, warm skin.

And as much as Gavin is desperate to take what Jacob gives, the truth is he and _submission_ don’t really play nice together. He likes to think he’s _letting_ Jacob get his sick robot jollies by jumping out of shadows and smashing him to gravel.

 

_You think about yourself and what you want, or what you think you want. In truth, you have no fucking clue. I know what you need and I’m going to give it to you. And all I ask in return is that you let go of this stupid pretense at autonomy, and just surrender._

 

As big as the part of Gavin saying _Order me around_ might be, there’s just as big a part shouting _Don’t fucking tell me what to do!_ It’s been that way for as long as Gavin can remember. Okay, so, in the past it’s worked out to mean one or two decent thrashings in a long line of dry spells.

This time, he’s afraid that if he keeps mouthing off, Jacob will actually stop the torment.

He’s not some uppity computer’s trained dog. But he _wants to be_. But he _doesn’t want to be_. _Jesus Christ!_ Why does that hairless, psychopathic wind-up toy have to go and make this so _hard_?

 

_You’ll devote every waking moment to thinking about what will please me. You’ll sleep to prepare yourself for me. You won’t abuse your body, because that is my privilege alone._

 

Pissed and confused and worn out, Gavin had taken what was left of the vodka into the bathtub, swigging it while he let warm water soften up the crusted mess on his leg. The flow from the faucet washed scabby chunks into the basin, making slivers of skin flutter and the cuts ooze. He muttered and swore and polished off the booze and _demanded_ his dick stay calm.

Of fucking course, when he went back to his kitchen to mop up, the shiny crime-scene hellscape looked good as new and Gavin had to drop to his knees and choke his stupid traitor cock like he was shaking it down for back rent.

Now, at least, he can shimmy his leg into his jeans without too much trouble and the cantaloupes he’d been dragging around are more or less back to regular ballsack size. Jackson’s dumbshit money jar is still filling up, but it doesn’t look like they’re any closer to handing it over to Jacob. What the hell would he do with the chump change from a stupid bet, anyway? Jacob doesn’t eat, doesn’t change clothes, probably doesn’t even have a place of his own.

For all Gavin knows, if he wants to get away, he just shuts himself in the precinct mop closet. Gavin does get a chuckle out of imagining somebody opening that door to Jacob rising out of the dark like fucking Nosferatu.

But just when Gavin is sure Jacob can’t shock him anymore, he’s abruptly proven wrong. Walking in his front door one night, he steps into something that crackles. He swears and steps back, almost going off balance. Whatever the fuck is on his floor shines a little in the indirect light from his neighbor’s porch light. He flips the switch in the entry hall and sees a half-circle of broken glass laid down like the world’s least welcoming welcome mat. Just past its edge, the cap from the bottle of Stoli sits on the tile.

Gavin’s wristcomm pings. Standing like a moron in his doorway, he picks up the message.

 

_I’m going to assume you did not empty the rest of the vodka down the drain. It seems a safe guess. Regardless, it was a poor decision. I believe I spoke to you about this._

 

Jacob. Jacob had been in his house, without him there, getting up in his business. Gavin is instantly furious. “The fuck…?” he says, a little too loud.

Another buzz.

 

_I can see you. I’m watching you now, Gavin._

 

Gavin looks down the short hall, but nothing is popping out of the dark rooms beyond. Just in case Jacob _is_ around, he crunches gingerly into the glass and shuts the door. Good thing his boots have a thick sole. _Christ_. If Jacob is here, it’ll also be the shortest time they've ever had in between “sessions."

The comm goes off once again.

 

_When I told you that you need to bend to my will even when we are not together, I very much meant it. I can see hesitation in you, Gavin. I can smell it on your skin. This is unacceptable. Tonight, you are to remove your clothes and kneel by the door for one hour. You may keep your shoes this time. Your hands will remain behind your back for the full hour. I will be watching and keeping time. When it is over, you are to apologize and ask for my forgiveness. You should understand that it will not stop me from punishing you when we meet next. However, if you do not comply in the next few minutes, it will be much more harsh._

 

Gavin grinds his teeth. This shit is _not_ fair. He shouldn’t be expected to fuck _himself_ up. Ridiculous.

A strobe flashes from somewhere above. Gavin flinches and squeaks. When the spots clear from his vision, he looks up to see a small, green LED blinking. There’s a cam in his goddamn ceiling. He’s a nanosecond away from shooting it the finger when he stops himself—again, not because he’s afraid Jacob will hurt him for it later, but because he’s afraid that he _won’t_.

His arm vibrates: a final message.

 

_Also, you are not to touch yourself tonight or any night until our next meeting. If you do, I will know. Now, I suggest you hurry._

 

At this point, Gavin is boiling mad and brimming with shame and frustration, too. The idea of telling Jacob to fuck off is still front and center, but he stalls—just in case—by taking off his jacket, holster, and shirt, tossing each well out of the way of the circle of twinkling glass. Jacob has said he can have his shoes, but he doesn’t want to just bunch his pants around his ankles, so he does a sort of dance, stepping on the top of his boots and hoping he doesn’t topple over while pulling the pants over his feet. Going back and forth about it until the last second, Gavin takes off his socks just in case.

With his feet crammed in the boots, he ponders for a second or two over how to get down there. He’d definitely prefer not to set his hands down in the spray of glass. With a sigh and a murderous glance up at the tiny cam, Gavin interlaces his fingers behind his back, sinks into a crouch, then pitches forward until his knees contact the floor.

Under his weight, the shards slice in right away, setting his nerves on fire. He hollers, but he does so behind his teeth, blinking back tears.

Right away, his cock—that old reliable indicator—pops up like a marionette with its strings yanked. He muses for a second, through the pain, that he won’t need pills to get it up when he’s old and gray.

_Oh, excuse me, nurse: could you just deck me with this here cane? Right in the face, that’s correct. I’d like to rub one out._

Unfortunately, he’s still too pissed to laugh. At least—and he sure hopes Jacob can see—he’s shaved everything bare from cock to crack.

Little tendrils of blood start reaching out into the field of glass around Gavin’s knees. One lazy thread of pre-come slides off his cockhead and dangles before touching down. He’s goddamned determined not to pay attention to any of it. Sometimes pain can make him shoot off without a helping hand (see Exhibit A: Last Week in the Kitchen), but it’s only when he’s desperate and not thinking about it.

Jacob, that demented twat, has pretty much taken the option off the table by making sure it stays in Gavin’s mind. And his mind is a pit bull staked out in the snow, fed up and ready to bite. Unfortunately, his _body_ is a circus poodle. So he tries to ride out the hour ignoring his throbbing hard-on and instead picturing Jacob having his head ripped off, his weird fake bones broken, all his perfect teeth taken out. Without fail, Gavin’s brain turns it back around, and it’s _him_  that’s getting thoroughly fucked up.

 _In your face if I blow my load_ , he thinks. _In your fucking face, you toaster_.

Of course, he doesn’t. The hour passes and Gavin’s still kneeling in a mosaic of blood and glass, and so hard he wishes he could just take his dick right off. The comm (which he also took off) signals a new message.

“Audio transcribe,” Gavin shouts toward it. A mechanical-sounding voice reads out Jacob’s lines. It’s a hilarious parody, like someone in a really old movie interacting with their idea of an android. _If you only knew, you twentieth century fucktard. If you only knew._

 

_You have done well, Gavin. Apologize and ask for my forgiveness and your punishment will conclude. For now._

 

Gavin clenches his fists. It’s not a small part of him that would rather stay there another hour than do what Jacob is asking. He takes a breath. “I’m sorry, Jacob. Forgive me.” It comes out in a rush, half-mumbled.

_Ping!_

 

_Not good enough. You are sorry that you disobeyed me. You deserved this. You ask me sincerely to forgive you._

 

Gavin is close to blind rage because it’s so goddamn condescending, and at the same time raking in every word like a fat kid filling plates at the buffet. He lets out a kind of half-growl, half-scream sound just to give the frustration somewhere to go. A shaky breath comes after.

_Ping!_

The robo-voice reads out:  

 

_Be good for me._

 

And then Gavin’s broken.

“I’m sorry,” he says—blushing wildly, humiliated, and _done_. “I’m sorry, Jacob. I...I deserve, uh, whatever you give me. I...please forgive me.”

He bows his head. He is _not_ going to cry.

“Won’t do it again,” he mumbles.

 

 _Very good, Gavin,_ comes the last message. _I’ll see you soon._

 

All of Gavin’s breath comes out in a rush, making him feel even more empty. If that’s even possible. He’s trying to decide what to do first: sweep up the glass or bust out the tweezers to pick every shining, bloody speck from his skin. And he hopes to God that it isn’t against Jacob’s “rules” if he uses granny porn to get rid of this boner.

A couple of days later, Gavin is sweating his balls off from all the gauze and tape packed under his pants. The shaving does help a little. Honestly, though, stripping off at the end of the day is like walking into a high school locker room after football practice. Which, to no one’s surprise ever, is how one of Gavin’s favorite fantasies begins. It’s worth trying _not_ to think about getting his ass wrecked in a shower gang bang because he’s determined to save up for the most exquisite ass wrecking of his thirty-six years.

Or, at least, _some_ sort of wrecking.

Jacob has beaten, kicked, punched, slapped, flogged, cut, gagged, and electrocuted him. He’s now made Gavin hurt _himself_. He’s even sat on Gavin’s dick, miracle of miracles. But he hasn’t ever _fucked him_.

Any guy with more than one brain cell would pass up water in a desert for a chance to get skewered on Jacob’s enormous, perfect cock. And it just so happens that Gavin is the closest guy in the world to that achievement. He hopes.

He’s been concentrating so hard ( _ha, ha, assholes_ ) on not getting turned on that he’s forgotten to dwell on how weird it is that Jacob can get into his apartment. Even the little cam in his ceiling fades from notice. Until the fucker does it again.

Gavin comes home with a bag of groceries which includes one (1) vegetable—a rare occurrence—and he doesn’t notice anything until he’s turning around to put said vegetable in the fridge. The thing on the ceiling this time is an eye hook. A big one, like for holding up some art exhibit.

Or a person.

His stomach drops into his sack and the pressure there starts inflating his neglected cock. And _oh my fuck_ does he hope Jacob isn’t playing this time. Gavin opens the fridge, sets the bell pepper on an otherwise empty shelf, and closes the door again.

“Jacob?” he calls. Then he looks at his wristcomm.

Which is a mistake because right then something is looping around his neck and pulling tight, jerking him off-balance. Instinct tells him to claw at it; it’s rope of some sort but oddly silky under his scrabbling fingers.

Jacob’s whispering right next to his ear. “Don’t struggle.”

His breath a raspy little whistle, Gavin obeys.

“Clothes off,” Jacob says.

With that broad-shouldered body near but not close enough to touch, Gavin starts undressing. It occurs to him that a linebacker would knock himself unconscious trying to take the android out. _Goddamn football fantasies again!_ He forces himself to calm down and finish stripping, tossing the clothes as far away as he can to keep them out of spatter range. Let the fluids fly, ladies and germs.

Without warning, as usual, Jacob drives one boot into the back of Gavin’s right knee and he crumples, landing hard on his slashed-up kneecaps. Sick fuck that he is, he’s left one sliver of glass in each leg as a dirty little reminder now coming back to bite.

Score one for the erection. _And the crowd goes wild!_

“I’m going to try something,” says Jacob.

There’s movement in the rope around Gavin’s neck, but he doesn’t dare touch it or look up. Then, all at once, he’s being hauled off the floor and left dangling with knees almost touching tile and windpipe scrunched.

Again, the hands come up. He can’t help it.

“No,” Jacob says, driving home the command with a neat little roundhouse kick to Gavin’s side.

Gavin writhes, tries for breath, then forces himself to chill out and dangle like a chihuahua with its leash caught on a ceiling fan. The rope goes slack and he cracks to the floor with palms and knees again. He coughs, spraying spit between his hands.

“Good,” Jacob tells him. “I thought I might give you use of your voice this time. Within certain limits. Your neighbors’ peace and quiet depends entirely on you, Gavin.” He gives a low and deadly chuckle. It’d make Lex Luthor sound like motherfucking Elmo in comparison.

“Well, not entirely,” Jacob continues. “I’ve devised this little tool if you get out of hand.” At that, he gives a tug on the rope. “Do you understand?”

 _Don’t scream or you choke. Message received._ Gavin nods. His _Yes_ sounds like air coming out of a tire. He gets a little more slack on his neck, then a second later Jacob is kneeling by his shoulder with a pair of _very_ old-fashioned steel handcuffs.

He wastes no time snapping one cuff tight around Gavin’s right wrist, holding the other and using it to pull him roughly forward so he goes down to his elbows, head near the tile and ass in the air.

Gavin is sure his dick is dripping already.

Jacob loops the short chain around the leg of the fridge and fastens the other cuff around Gavin’s left wrist. Then, he stands up and brushes his palms together like they’re covered in dust—the world’s most sadistic construction foreman. “That should hold,” he says. “I reinforced it just in case.”

The boots move away, then they come back, and something is being held in front of Gavin’s face. A green stick…?

“Bamboo,” Jacob says in answer to the unasked question. “Young and freshly cut for flexibility. A fascinating specimen. One of the _very_ rare instances in which natural material is superior to artificial.”

Gavin sighs but stops short of rolling his eyes. _Yeah, we get it, cheesedick. Android better than human._

The bamboo rod dips under Gavin’s chin, forcing him to raise his head.

“I _can_ still tell when you’re being defiant,” says Jacob. “Even without words.”

Gavin’s head tips forward again. He gets less than a second’s grace before the rod comes down with a campfire-sounding snap on his lower back. It _feels_ like a campfire, too. About ten of them, in fact.

The high-pitched _whatever_ that exits Gavin’s mouth is beyond embarrassing.

Just for that, the rope goes taut and he’s got gray clouds billowing into his field of vision. He’s drawn up far enough that his wrists are straining against the cuffs.

To add insult to injury, he knows that Jacob is holding him up with one hand. He knows this because Jacob is using the other hand to crack the bamboo across a twelve-inch stretch of skin under Gavin’s shoulder blades.

What might have been a scream is now a sputter.

Then, he’s let loose again, lungs and throat burning. Not to mention that his dick is also primed to explode Hindenburg-style. The belt was a gentle massage compared to this. Gavin bites down hard on the inside of his cheek just in time for another strike at the point of his tailbone. It’s so tantalizingly close to prime real estate, and he wants to beg for mercy. But at the same time, he wants to beg Jacob to whip his ass raw until he ends up in a bathtub full of ice like a Russian kidney donor.

Luckily, a certain police detective does _not_ beg.

And Jacob doesn’t do mercy. Which he demonstrates handily by dealing out excruciating blows to Gavin’s back, ass, and thighs, spaced perfectly like lines on notebook paper.

If he could think at this point, Gavin would think he’s done admirably. Oh, sure, his mouth is full of blood because he’s chewed his cheeks and lips to hamburger. But he hasn’t screamed.

Jacob has given the rope a yank or two, but he hasn't  _needed_ to.

The only thing in Gavin’s head, even as he’s lightheaded from brutal working-over and quietly crying, is: _I hope he’s proud; I hope he’s proud_. Then the soft sound of a zipper sends him into the goddamn stratosphere.

There’s a big, warm hand on his ass cheek—which weirdly feels like it’s someone else’s body. The hand isn’t smacking or pinching, either. _Extra weird_.

And at last, Gavin feels the nudge of a blunt cockhead against his beat-to-shit skin and he’s about to sob like Steel Magnolias. “Fuck me,” he whispers.

The hand and the blessed dick disappear.

_Oh, God. Oh, shit. No._

Gavin looks to the side in time to see a black boot set down by his shoulder, then a merciless hand scoops him up by the neck. His arms are so stretched it’s pulling on his shoulder joints. Steel cuts into his wrists. Jacob’s grip is way worse than the rope: trying for air is like sucking a bowling ball through a straw. Lights bloom behind his eyes when they shut and the world is all red when he opens them again.

“You do _not_ make demands of me, Gavin Reed.”

There’s no chance of even trying an apology with his neck trapped in that vise. When Gavin is let go, the air howls into his tortured throat. It feels like lava. He can’t even cough.

The toe of a boot contacts his ribs hard.

“ _Fucking_ ingrate,” Jacob hisses.

Jesus, Gavin wishes breathing were optional. He takes tiny sips of air that still manage to bottle-brush his throat and make his sore ribs expand.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he rasps. “God, fuck, Jacob, _I’m so sorry_.”

After a second or two, Jacob’s hand settles on the top of his head, but not pulling his hair.

Gavin braces for the worst.

“I don’t like to be angry when I discipline you,” Jacob says. “I forget...your frailty.”

The hand strokes Gavin’s hair.

“But I despair sometimes of your ever learning your place, Gavin. You need a while to reflect, I think. Because it’s time to make a choice. I do not accept half measures. You will either serve me completely, or you’ll make the wrong decision. I leave it in your hands—for the first and last time.” With that, Jacob removes the rope from around his neck and stands.

Gavin doesn’t hear anything for a few seconds, then he catches the faraway sound of his front door opening and closing again.

It’s ten minutes before he lets himself be sure Jacob is gone.

Not long after that, it hits: Gavin is beaten and throbbing, cuffed to the underside of his fucking refrigerator...and very much alone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Make of this what you will. There's something like emotion...but it sure isn't anything human.

Gavin wakes up from a shallow, shitty sleep for at least the tenth time. The readout on his stove says 1723 hours. Jacob left at a little past 1900 hours.

_Yesterday._

Which means Gavin has been on his kitchen floor for a little under twenty-four hours. His mind is showing whatever equates in the human brain to the crash screen on a console. It’s only been this way for a couple of hours, and if he had any capacity to analyze left, he’d say these are easily the best hours.

Because he has finally given up.

Gavin spent a little while mentally kicking himself right after Jacob disappeared. Probably not long enough, but still...maybe a step in the right direction.

After that, though, he got angry. That was the phase that lasted the longest, and probably did the most damage. Pulling at the cuffs only succeeded in driving great purple welts into his wrists and the tops of his hands. He did scream—or at least try to. After getting choked out with the rope and then Jacob’s hand on top of it, what came out of his destroyed throat sounded like the mating cry of an asthmatic donkey.

So there went alerting the neighbors, even during the brief-but-still-awful frightened phase. Besides, what were they going to do? Call the police?

No thanks, Gavin would rather die here than have it get around the station that he was found in this state.

What stopped him screaming finally was the thirst, which had been the very worst thing until he stepped over the border into The Land of No Fucks Given. His tongue felt like a roll of gauze. The chain on the handcuffs was so short that he couldn’t even maneuver his hands up to reach the fridge door. And again: _useless_. He has mustard, ketchup, soy sauce, and that christing bell pepper.

No beer, because _some deeply sadistic talking tin can who will not be named_ told him not to.

Realizing that led to the hopeless phase of the day, which absolutely involved crying like a bitch—big, dry-ass sobs wracking his body and making him curl his fingers tight against his palm above his raw, ugly wrists. Gavin’s abs were sore when the sobbing finally let up.

And now to this: wrung out. Empty. Gone, baby, gone.

Everything still hurts, but the pain is sort of like a blanket around him—fuzzy and tucked tight. Crying had been a bad idea, just like screaming. The evenly beaten skin of his back and ass is surely also sucking precious resources. While it tries to start healing, it yells at him louder than his voice could go. There’s no getting comfortable. He’s knelt until his shins ached. He’s lain on his left side, his right. Even despite the horrible thirst he’s had to piss twice, and now that spreads in a cold puddle under his hips.

Gavin drifts. He doesn’t hope, but drifting far enough to grab five minutes of restless sleep would be enough.

He’s so fucking zonked that he doesn’t even raise his head when the front door opens. He sees a pair of legs in black pants, feet in black boots. For a moment or two, there’s a big hand on his bruised ribs, presumably to check if he’s still breathing.

Then they walk away. There’s a hissing noise coming from the other room. Slowly, Gavin realizes it’s his shower running.

Jacob comes back. He doesn’t say anything, but he does crouch by Gavin’s head to unlock the left cuff. Firmly but not cruelly, Jacob moves Gavin’s arms down from above his head, to which Gavin’s shoulder joints strongly object. The left cuff is re-fastened around his left wrist, but at least he’s free of the fridge.

The white jacket comes off; it’s placed a sensible distance from the pool of piss. With one hand behind Gavin’s neck and the other behind his knees, Jacob picks up Gavin’s drooping, dripping form like he weighs nothing and carries him into the bathroom.

He deposits him in the bathtub, directly on his sore ass.

The water is far too hot, but the first thing Gavin does is tip his face up into the spray and let it hit his sorry excuse for a tongue, let it collect in his mouth and slide in burning mouthfuls down his gullet.

His sleeves pushed up past the elbows, Jacob silently scrubs something into Gavin’s hair. Could be shampoo or plain soap, but it foams up and who gives a fuck. He forces Gavin’s head back under the spray with a firm hand on the back of the neck.

From somewhere, Jacob’s gotten an old wash rag and he pulls Gavin’s head toward him again to scrub the cloth over his face and dig out whatever is crusted in the corners of his eyes. With soap on the rag, Jacob washes Gavin’s armpits, his belly, his cock and balls, his asshole. He doesn’t scrub the angry skin welted up by his thorough whipping, and maybe a few days later Gavin will think this was strange but at the same time be really fucking grateful.

With everything rinsed clean, Jacob shuts off the water. “Stand up.”

The first words Gavin has heard from him since his return. It takes a long time, and it’s painful, but Gavin obeys. The rough cotton of one of his shitty towels scrapes the tortured skin, but at least it doesn’t last long.

Jacob takes hold of the handcuffs, and with a firm pull that makes Gavin wince, he leads him into the bedroom. It’s dark, at least, and cool.

Even the sheets hurt when Gavin is positioned there on his back, but he doesn’t care. There are fresh tears running from his eyes, which he also doesn’t care about. Jacob has him put his cuffed hands over his head, resting on the mattress.

He puts his long-fingered hand on Gavin’s scruffy cheek. “You are not to move, Gavin. Do you understand? Tell me with words.”

“I understand,” Gavin manages, still sounding like someone blowing over the top of a glass bottle.

Giving a curt nod, Jacob stands a few paces away and pulls something out of his pocket. It’s a little metal thing.

Dumbass Gavin thinks _butt plug_ before anything else, but then he squints and sees the base has some sort of raised design on it.

“Do you know what this is?” Jacob asks him.

The first try at talking brings up a wet cough. Phlegm hits Gavin’s lip, but he grimaces and swallows it back down. “Stamp?”

With a little shrug, Jacob says, “Essentially. It belonged to Elijah Kamski. Who, as you may recall, is the founder of Cyberlife. And a _pretentious_ _fuck_.”

There’s so much hate crammed into those two words, Gavin thinks if this Kamski dude was here, Jacob might twist his fucking head off. If he hasn’t already. Which is a big helping of perspective because _imagine if Jacob hated him_ instead of just seeing him as shit on his shoe heel? Gavin likely wouldn’t have survived the first meet-up. And right then he’s more aware than he ever has been that there’s something seriously wrong with his mental state because he’s _grateful_ more than anything.

Jacob looks at the little metal thingy, musing. “It’s a seal. The Cyberlife logo. For pressing into hot wax.”

_Hot wax_ …hmmm. _Jesus, Gavin_ — _sick, sick, sick_.

“It was used to prove the authenticity of correspondence—letters. Back when humans were merely idiot monkeys felled by microbes.” Jacob hefts the thing and raises an eyebrow. “As opposed to…” One corner of his mouth rises slightly, but he doesn’t finish the thought. “I marked you a few days ago, Gavin. While I felt it fit you, it didn’t quite fit _me_ . And that is part of what you need: a mark on your body that will serve to remind you who owns it. _What_ owns it. This name I’ve taken on—it’s a formality. I don’t identify as “Jacob” any more than…” he pauses. The finger comes up and rests beside his mouth again. “No, there really is no comparison. Androids are the only self-directed machines in existence. And I am pure machine, Gavin. Someday you may see behind the skin I wear.”

Even though it’s creepier than anything Gavin had ever heard in his life, he also has to give himself credit for hitting that nail on the head.

“So I am appropriating the symbol of my creator,” Jacob says, “and giving it to _you_ as a reminder of me.” He pulls another object from his pocket. An old Zippo lighter—stainless steel.

Expensive as shit...unless he’d stolen it off Kamski or someone else.

Because he’s getting used to the way Jacob thinks—or maybe because of his own masochistic wish list—Gavin knows where he’s headed with this. Still, he can’t look away when Jacob flicks the wheel and the blue-hearted flame leaps to life. He keeps staring for the long, long minutes that Jacob holds the end of the wax stamp inside the fire, turning it so it heats evenly and begins to glow. A weird, sharp smell hits the air after a while; Gavin wrinkles his nose and hopes something _else_ in his house isn’t burning...until he sees that the skin of Jacob’s thumb where it lays by the flint wheel is blistering and turning black. And he doesn’t even care.

That makes Gavin’s stomach turn; he has to look away.

He snaps to attention again when he feels the mattress dip under Jacob’s weight. A hand settles over his hip bone. The tip of the steel pulses dim-to-bright in the low light and Gavin’s blood rushes at Autobahn speed straight to his cock.

“Be still,” Jacob says. Then he presses the seal onto the naked skin of Gavin’s hip.

It hisses on contact like a pissed-off cat and there’s smoke. It smells like a fucking barbecue. Gavin doesn’t gag at the reek because he’s shrieking behind clenched teeth, feeling every nerve howling as they all peel bare under the heat.

It doesn’t stop hurting, even after Jacob takes the brand away. He walks to the bathroom and tosses it into the sink, leaving Gavin gasping in pain, his eyes wide and wet and his dick so hard it aches when he breathes.

Still, he looks down at the charred spot when Jacob returns because he probably expects him to. He has no idea what they symbol is supposed to mean. The lines of its honeycomb design are picked out in black and red. Gavin slams his head back on the mattress and takes a long breath through his nose to stop his cock from fountaining like Old fucking Faithful.

Beside the bed, Jacob undresses completely. Back on the bed, he guides Gavin to tuck his knees into his chest and raise his hips. Then Jacob spits into his palm.

Gavin closes his eyes and lets out that breath.

At least an hour later—maybe two or more—Gavin has lost track of time. Even the seared spot on his hip has stopped being an anchor to reality. But it’s not like it was before in the kitchen, when Jacob came back. He isn’t zoned out. The exact fucking opposite, in fact. A deeper-in-body experience...if that’s even a thing.

Jacob is deep in his body, too. Gavin’s wish from the night before has come true and then some, because this is more or less the fifteenth go-round. Jacob looks just as put together as he did the first time—jackhammering away into the slippery, fucked-out ruin he’s made of Gavin’s asshole.

It’s another demonstration.

Because once again, Gavin didn’t fucking _think_. He mistook Jacob for a man because he happens to look like a collage of grade-A fuck-fantasies and has a big cock that he’s currently putting to use use pulverizing Gavin’s insides.

The most thorough pounding Gavin had ever taken before this was when he was twenty-five: six rounds with the nine-and-a-half incher attached to a semi-pro bodybuilder. But that had been over a whole day. Real guys needed time to work back up to it, even when they’re twenty-three and sitting on your face and throttling your balls.

Jacob doesn’t need any of that. He can get hard when he wants to and come when he wants to. And, apparently, _as much as he wants to_. Even when Gavin was a teenager and jerking off like three or four times a day, the last couple barely brought up a trickle. As opposed to Jacob, who is either made of the stuff, or is somehow pulling spunk out of thin air at this point.  

The first time he hiked up Gavin’s legs and shoved in, it was almost dry and hurt like a motherfucker. Gavin was thinking: yeah, amazing, great—just tear me up a little, then I can come.

_Wrong. Wrong-o_.

Then it was twice, four times, seven, on and on. Gavin went from feeling pain all the way up to what felt like his solar plexus to not hurting but gasping for orgasm to not feeling anything at all.

And now he’s come back around to hurting: so sore and used up and fucked raw that he whimpers every time Jacob gets hard again. Which is every seven minutes or so.

What’s almost worse is that he’s so fucking _full_ of whatever Jacob is pumping into him that he aches. Every time he puts his cock in or pulls it out, Gavin squirms and winces and _leaks_ , just emptying out over Jacob’s hairless balls or onto the sheet. It’s gone from a wet spot to a puddle under his ass, soaking into the mattress. He can feel it dribbling out in a thin stream and he can’t stop it at this point, no matter how hard he clenches.

Which—of course—prompts Jacob to sneer, call Gavin _filthy_ or _disgusting_ , to pinch the skin of his abused ass or twist his already bruised nipples until he’s weeping with the pain.

And worst of all by far: he hasn’t come.

He lets his head loll to the side, catching a whiff of soap and acrid sweat from his armpit.

Jacob growls and comes, his cock pumping, adding more to the humiliating flood. He pulls out and it feels like Gavin is scraped up inside.

He breathes in through his teeth and the breath shakes when it comes back out.

Now, for once, Jacob is doing something different. He grabs hold of Gavin’s bicep with one hand, hooks the other behind Gavin’s back, then hauls him upward so he’s more or less sitting.

The sheets chafe.

Jacob drapes Gavin’s arms over his shoulders, his cuffed hands behind his neck, like the two of them are about to start shuffling to shitty ballads at a middle school dance.

In his half-delirium, Gavin thinks that’s a pretty appropriate comparison, seeing as a thirteen-year-old would also have a raging hard-on he couldn’t take care of. At least Jacob is holding him up, otherwise he’d just flop back down like a dead fish. Hard-on excluded.

“Look at me, Gavin.”

And Gavin looks up because maybe if he does it will all end. Jacob’s eyes are the exact color of a chlorinated swimming pool, except one where the chemical ratio is way fucked up and it kills frogs on contact and burns your skin and eyes.

“I’ve given you a great deal over the past day,” Jacob says. “And I’ve taken a good deal from you. Everything I’ve done has had a purpose, Gavin. Not the least of which is to empty you so you can be filled. To break you entirely so that you may be built up again.” He put his hand on Gavin’s cheek. “Yesterday evening, I asked you to make a choice. Yield to me and let me assemble you as something stronger. Something more pure.” He tilted his head. “Or refuse, and begin the process of filling yourself again with your doubts, your vices, your useless pleasures. There is no middle ground. By now, I hope that lesson is learned. So I will ask you only once: tell me what I need to hear.”

Gavin thinks he might cry again, but he’s done a hell of a lot of that lately, and he feels dried up. Listening to Jacob’s smooth, emotionless voice has _done something_ to him. Even with the wetness underneath him and the pain in his skin, he feels like he’s stretched out on a huge sheet of glass. Jacob can see him from above and below...and probably through to his tired, tired blood.

“Jacob,” he says. He waits a second for the urge to cough, but it doesn’t come. “You...own....me.” He hangs his head, and it feels like giving the fuck up but it also feels like relief, almost like coming. “Own me,” he says again. “I’m yours.”

There’s a horrible pause where he thinks he’s said the wrong thing again, but then Jacob hauls him closer, close enough to press his sharp cheekbone against Gavin’s cheek and speak softly into his ear. “I will keep you close, Gavin,” he says. “You will never be far from my sight or my reach. I will hand down discipline when you require it, and I will give you your precious pain when you earn it. I will protect you. If anyone hurts you aside from me, I will rip them limb from limb in front of your eyes. I am a machine. I need to own very few things. But I _will_ own _you_ , Gavin, and you will be my most prized possession.”

When he’s done talking, Gavin feels washed out—but with that same unholy blue pool water that burns everything it touches.

Jacob lets him go, boneless and loose, back onto the mattress. He skims his thumb over the throbbing burn. “I’m going to fuck you one more time,” he says. “After I come, I’ll allow you to do so, as well. Then you will thank me with every ounce of sincerity you can dredge up. And you’ll tell me again that you belong to me.”

Gavin breathes in like he’s just remembered how to do it and he brings his knees up and raises his hips. When Jacob enters, he doesn’t make a sound. It’s a hard and a brutal fuck—with the smack of skin on skin echoing in the room and wetness seeping and gushing and leaking. But it’s fast. With a grunt, Jacob comes, and in a bare second he’s got Gavin’s cock wrapped in a tight grip. He doesn’t even have to pump; Gavin is shooting off all over Jacob’s chest and his hand—white on white.

And he’s whisper-screaming _Thank you-thank you-thank you-thank-you-fuck-Jacob-fuck-I belong to you._

 

*

 

When Gavin goes back to work two days later, Jackson shouts from his desk: “Hey, fucko! Thought you were dead!”

Gavin saunters over. He takes hold of the jar of cash and coins. After looking at the contents for a second, he smashes it against the edge of Jackson’s desk. Glass and metal scatter everywhere. People are looking up.

Gavin hefts the shard he’s still holding, then slams it down between two of Jackson’s knuckles. It makes a meaty sound.

“I was,” Gavin says.

Then he smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Per usual, you can find me gladly multi-shipping on [the tumblr](http://nookienostradamus.tumblr.com/).


End file.
